We performed a comparison between Sophos UTM and Sophos XG based on real PeerSpot user reviews.
Find out in this report how the two Firewalls solutions compare in terms of features, pricing, service and support, easy of deployment, and ROI."The ease of setting the solution up is a valuable aspect for us."
"FortiGate is on the cheaper end, and it offers good value."
"Its administrative panel is very intuitive and simple. It is simpler than the other solutions that we had. As an administrator, we are always looking for the easiest solution to manage network policies. We are able to filter everything on our network and also use the VPN feature, which is important these days when people are working remotely during COVID."
"The tool is a nice product and easy to handle. The software's user interface is also good. You can easily implement remote access in the solution."
"The features that prevent internet connections, the filtering are the most valuable because we did not have any internet protection before."
"The most valuable feature is the SSL VPN, as it allows us to connect and it separates this product from other firewalls."
"Secure, user-friendly, stable, and scalable network security solution. Installation is straightforward."
"The product offers very good security."
"What I like about the solution is the ease of use."
"It allows me to easily connect with more than forty-five remote sites and more than fifty remote users between IPsec and SSL VPN, applying the web filter and application filter to ensure a secure connection."
"The most valuable feature of Sophos UTM is the endpoint protection feature."
"The most valuable feature of Sophos UTM is reporting, it is flexible. I can monitor the end user's devices, even when they are not on my network. It has good drill-down capabilities."
"It allows our developers to be able to securely log into servers to deploy and manage software."
"The initial setup has been fine."
"What I like about Sophos UTM is that it improves my company's security. The solution is easy to set up, which I like, and it's very stable."
"The most valuable feature of Sophos UTM is the efficiency and mail filtering module."
"Price-wise the solution offers acceptable rates. You can find cheaper solutions on the market but when you go cheaper you have fewer features. Today, based on iQuate market the price is very reasonable and affordable, and it's good if you get a good discount. Discounts can be offered by the vendor. If it's a competitive upgrade which means the customer is upgrading from another vendor, Sophos provides extra discount so they can win the deal. In general, it is a good price."
"The solution has very good security features, is easy to use for administrators and users, and has informative reports."
"The security of Sophos XG is very good."
"The most valuable feature is that it scans all of the data for any kind of malware."
"It's a product that is in continuous improvement and is following what the customer is asking for. They are taking inputs and designing new releases specifically according to the client and their needs."
"I like the dashboard, the interface, the management console, and the remote login."
"The most valuable features of Sophos XG for our use cases are its firewall capabilities, its ability to connect to wide area and local networks, and its VPN functionality."
"Sophos XG is very useful, it does many things."
"I would like reporting to be improved and should offer a lot more tools to monitor the products."
"The feedback that I have received is that the performance could be better, and the user experience is not as good compared to a previous solution we used. It could be more user-friendly. Of course, it still works fine for our operations."
"As far as wanting more scalability or things in the network diagram, it's going to cost you."
"I think there could be more QoS features"
"Stability and technical support are the two major issues I have found with Fortinet."
"The firmware needs improvement because there are bugs when a new release comes through. Sometimes, the configuration changes, and it's a bit harder to see where the fail is. The first time that you have the firmware, it tends to have some issues, and it's better to wait a bit to update the equipment."
"Sometimes you do need to know some CLI commands, so it's a bit harder for technicians or new people that don't know it."
"We'd like more management across other integrations."
"I didn't like it much. It suits only small businesses. It isn't scalable and reliable. There is a very critical issue with the power supply."
"Sophos UTM could improve if there was no limitation on users."
"We had some problems with the configuration. They had provided a CloudFormation template, and we had to go several rounds to make it work."
"The interface configuration could be improved."
"The initial setup was straightforward. The full deployment takes approximately two days which could be simplified to reduce the time. The major part of the process is the configuration and the policy setup."
"Sophos customer support could use some improvement."
"Sophos UTM's internet security could be better."
"The reporting system needs to allow for customizations because many reports do not include details that we expect."
"The interface of Sophos XG could be improved. I would prefer the Sophos XG to have an interface for the technician who is setting it up similar to the Sophos SG. I felt the Sophos SG user interface was superior. however, in terms of the functionality of the product, Sophos XG is in many ways more powerful than the Sophos SG. I have no complaints about the quality of the product or the end result. For someone who has used both, I preferred the old interface to the new one."
"In the Firewall, the Intrusion Prevention System can be improved."
"The reaction time of the GUI is terrible when compared to other manufacturers."
"I'd like the dashboard to be improved. It could be a bit more customizable."
"Scalability could be improved. It could be better."
"The initial setup, specifically when activating the license, is a nightmare and is quite difficult."
"The VPN is in need of improvement."
"The solution could be more secure."
Sophos UTM is ranked 1st in Unified Threat Management (UTM) with 110 reviews while Sophos XG is ranked 7th in Firewalls with 192 reviews. Sophos UTM is rated 8.4, while Sophos XG is rated 8.2. The top reviewer of Sophos UTM writes "It's a highly stable platform with very few hardware issues". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Sophos XG writes "Easy to use and deploy with an improved pricing structure in place". Sophos UTM is most compared with Netgate pfSense, OPNsense, Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls, Cisco Secure Firewall and WatchGuard Firebox, whereas Sophos XG is most compared with Netgate pfSense, OPNsense, Sophos XGS, SonicWall TZ and Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls. See our Sophos UTM vs. Sophos XG report.
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The biggest difference between Sophos SG and Sophos XG is performance.
Now, there's even a newer Hardware Platform (same OS as Sophos XG, which is called SFOS) - the Sophos XGS which has different chipset architecture, to attend each security module, with its newest feature called XStream Technology.
Besides that, the GUI is very different. Nevertheless, it's worth trying the Sophos XG or XGS, since its GUI is getting overhauled for better performance and easier management, by each new release.
Sophos UTM is no longer being developed, according to our reseller. All the development effort is going into XG. So XG will be the only Sophos firewall going forward, UTM will eventually be end of life.
Hi,
The new appliances XGS have a dedicated streaming CPU (Xstream), in addition to the main CPU.
I have personally tested the differences between the XG and XGS similar appliances. The result is spectacular. 30% more perf minimum:
https://www.sophos.com/en-us/p...
The UTM-9 is soon end-life. Sophos security staff is now focused on SFOS 18, XG, XGS.
To respond to the question "the biggest difference", I think is the "Synchronized Security":
https://www.sophos.com/en-us/l...
The firewall is one of the full security solutions centralized in Sophos Central:
https://www.sophos.com/en-us/p...
At most of our customers, we implement a Sophos Endpoint locally on servers and workstations and firewall XGS. The synchronized security interact between firewall and endpoints. This can resolve the problem with the "lateral movement" of an infected computer. It can isolate a computer from the network when detected as infected:
https://news.sophos.com/en-us/...
It can be extended to secure cloud systems with Sophos ClouOptix:
https://www.sophos.com/en-us/p...
Tested with VM in AWS and Azure, work 5*!
Another big difference is the Webserver Application Firewall. All my customers with an internal webserver to be published in the net are protected with this "reverse proxy" (WAF). It really does the job of protecting IIS, Apache, etc. from externals attacks.
Another trick is the SSL VPN sites to sites. When a branch office is implemented with a front ISP router, sometimes the NAT traversal is not possible, for IPSEC VPN connections (UDP 500). With this SSL VPN, Simple NAT works and gives an SSL 128-bit AES encryption.
Finally, I have a lot of experience in implementing UTM and, now, XG(S). No way, the log is a big difference, easier to use as in Fortigates! It is similar to CheckPoint firewalls.
For my experience, no way: -> Sophos XG(S)
Here is an interesting link on differences between UTM and XG:
https://www.avanet.com/en/blog...
Regards,
A.Rastello
My understanding is that UTM is the software; SG is the hardware. You can buy Sophos UTM running on SG hardware and then later upgrade to the XG running on the same hardware.
I've been told by our Sophos reseller that Sophos are pushing the XG as next generation firewall, and developing it to at least as good as UTM. So XG will be the firewall of choice moving forward. UTM will not be developed further, according to him.
To my understanding, UTM and XG are from different legacy companies that
are now owned my Sophos. During my time researching anti-virus, UTM makes
more sense for our needs seeing as XG is primarily a firewall. From the
information I was able to find during the time of research, it seemed most
of the community felt XG had feature gaps from UTM.
UTM specifically SG series is a very mature and stable platform. It lacks some of the new features of XG; however has a very strong feature set. If you are looking for stability, ease of use and something well documented and understood than I suggest going this way. If however you are looking for a strong level of integration and have a greater than 3 year horizon then I suggest XG.
Wifi integration for example works better on the new platform.
There are several differences since there are 2 versions,
XG firewall has integrations with other products like intercept X and admin from Sophos central.
SG UTM has less integration since it's a separate product. It was formerly Astaro firewall, but the most advanced features have been only set to the XG.
There are appliance and software versions of both products. Depending on your need you might choose one or another. But basically, look at them as 2 different firewalls.